"Is this related to Half-Life?"

I'm seriously wondering if Valve really made this game. My personal opinion of this game is, quite simply, that it's lame.

While it IS a Half-Life game, there really isn't anything that's as good as the original.

Blue Shift is designed to be an add-on campaign for the original game. In it, you are taking on the role of a security guard from Black Mesa. The ironic thing about this game is that now that you're controlling the guard, he'll be the only guard to actually make it out of the game alive. Somehow (complete sarcasm) the NPC guards always managed to get killed...

While very cool in concept, this game was poorly executed. Some of the 'platform' elements of the original were executed perfectly. I honestly didn't see this in Blue Shift. Just the level design in general was rather lame compared to other games. You will often find puzzles that involve perhaps breaking a crate or two, or maybe throwing a switch that is conveniently placed right next to a door you're supposed to open, but you have to throw a power switch in the back of the room. The simplicity and over all lack of originality is really where this game suffers.

Okay, I must also admit that I lied. There does happen to be something that's as good in Blue Shift as it was in Half-Life. That 'something' happens to be the graphics, since it's the same engine and they didn't really mess with the models or textures too much. Okay, and I concede, the sounds are pretty much the same, too.

The alternate coloring of your HUD and the addition of some new character dialogue is nice, but quite simply, it's not enough to compensate for or overshadow the complimentary demerit points this game manages to get for its mediocre game play.

The game play in general was very much like the first Half-Life, which really comes at no surprise. But if you play it, you, too will find it hard just go get past how laughably bad it is.

Blue Shift had a LOT of potential. While some of it was indeed tapped in making this game, it feels too much like the game was thrown together much faster than it should have been, and suffers justly from that.

One can attribute my general score to the fact that it IS Half-Life in a blue suit, after all. But seeing as I rate Half-Life much higher than a 5, there has to be a reason that I brought the score down, right? WRONG! I can say what I want, but really, there is a reason. Blue Shift took what was Half-Life and then led it a few steps back. Especially when it's been made by the original developer, I don't think that a game (even an add-on) should do that. Add-ons should enrich your experience. As I said before, Blue Shift is basically mediocre, so it's scored as such.

If you want to have a good time playing as a security guard, check out Azure Sheep. It's very good, and on top of that, is FREE! Just go to any semi-respectable search engine and type "Azure Sheep". From there, you just have to download it and you're on your way to having fun.